Sign o’ the Times

Choosing a single high point from Prince’s glorious run in the ’80s is impossible, but Sign o’ the Times surely stands as his most complex and varied statement.

In 1987, Prince Rogers Nelson was in transition. He’d disbanded the Revolution, the band that had backed him since Purple Rain. He’d toyed with doing a collaborative album with Revolution members Wendy & Lisa, but also abandoned that. He’d put a lot of time into crafting a record around an alter ego called Camille, whose tracks were recorded with his voice pitched to sound even more womanly than his trademark falsetto. But that too had stalled.

The album he released on March 31, 1987 was a Prince solo record that, like his 1980 artistic breakthrough Dirty Mindand his two earlier albums, was essentially a one-man-band recording which relied heavily on the LinnDrum, various samplers, and his remarkable aptitude on every instrument under the sun. Of the 16 songs on Sign o’ the Times, only three have co-writers, and save for one track (“It’s Going to Be a Beautiful Night”), outside musical accompaniment is slight. In a sense, Prince’s major musical collaborator at this point was his engineer Susan Rogers, who recorded him at different studios in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and even Paris.

But unlike his earlier solo efforts, Sign o’ the Times wasn’t a record by an ambitious kid trying to make impression. At 28, Prince had already made himself into a pop superstar (and movie star too), and he easily sold out arenas. In one sense, he had nothing to prove. Yet Sign o’ the Times is the most varied, accomplished record of his prime 1980s period, a testament to the range of his gifts and the bold artistic ambition that gave his music shape.

Part of Prince’s drive was that he was keenly aware that hip-hop was rising up and shifting the sound of music. Rap was entering its “golden age,” and its mix of gritty storytelling and dope beats had to be reckoned with. (Michael Jackson would release Bad, his own answer to hip-hop, six months later.) So the title cut, with Prince’s commentary on the issues of the day (“a big disease with a little name,” mentions of crack and gang violence) and minimalist Run-DMC-styled production, made clear that Prince had his ear to the street. The song functions as Prince’s version of “The Message,” and, as crazy as that sounds, it works.

Prince wasn’t just wrestling with fresh energy from the streets on Sign o’ the Times, but with the twin pillars of carnality and spirituality that had defined his career and that of black popular music for decades. For this Minneapolis native, it wasn’t so much a battle between sin and salvation, as it was how the warring desires could become one, synthesized through innovative arrangements, seductive yet fraught lyrics, and that remarkable voice.

“Forever in My Life,” for example, has the sincere melody of early Sly and the Family Stone. It sounds ready made for optimistic sing-a-longs. At first, you think it’s a simple love song, but there’s a devotional quality (“You are my savior/You are my life”) that makes it a chant of piety. At the same time, songs like “Hot Thing” and “It” are aggressively sexual, but in the context of the electronic, oddly-pitched sounds around the words, they seem more like the search for human connection and transcendence rather than a roll in the hay.

The album’s two ballads, “Slow Love” (co-written by singer-songwriter Carol Davis) and “Adore,” are both showcases for Prince’s vocal prowess. The man was an encyclopedia of vocal styles, able to croon like a 1950s pop star on the nostalgic “Slow Love” and do ’60s soul style on “Adore.” Though equally adept at showy vocal riffs and screaming in tune, Prince’s lower, cooler register seems to express his truest self.

Prince’s ability to move between genres made him a unique musical chameleon with Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney his only peers at the highest levels of pop. While he was often compared to Wonder, especially early in his career, it’s the ex-Beatle who seemed to have the most enduring influence. McCartney’s story-song sketches on The White Album helped define his career. For Prince, they were just one of many tools. His whimsical profiles of an odd elementary school classmate (“Starfish & Coffee”) and a quirky lover with the name of a celebrated New Yorker writer (“The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”) are lovely stories supported by surreal sounds and beats, suggesting you are on psychedelic journey through Prince’s memories.

Sign o’ the Times is difficult to grapple with because there’s so much going on in each track. The up-tempo “Play in the Sunshine” drops in jazz fusion riffs and choral voices just when you think its winding down. “The Cross” starts as a mournful song of devotion to Christ with acoustic guitar and sitar before exploding into a huge rock anthem with military drums and fuzz guitar. “Play in the Sunshine” opens with the sound of kids at play, becomes a rockabilly song, transitions midway into a guitar showcase, and then, with a marimba, a different drum pattern, and cleverly arranged backing voices, it ends a musical world away from where it began.

“Housequake” is, perhaps, the most obvious songs on the album, a funk jam that would have been a hit single if he’d allowed it to be released as such. But the care of the track’s construction belies any shallow analysis. It starts with a cartoony voice (maybe a Camille reference), a synthesized drum heavy with echo, then adds bass, keyboard stabs, and rhythm guitar. The synth drum and snare drum merge while there’s a double-beat on the kick. Live horns come it and the bass line moves as there’s both a synth bass keyboard and a live bass doing playing different lines. Various backing vocals float in and out with Prince doing his James Brown impersonation as singer/MC. Compared to the simple loops of your average club banger, “Housequake” is a symphony of syncopation. The beat moves even as it grooves.

Because Prince played and recorded the album using now-vintage late ’80s technology there are moments when certain sounds, particularly the drums, are clearly of their era. But these sonic distractions don’t last as the scope of the songs, the musicianship, and overall arrangements are just too glorious to nitpick. Sign o’ the Times is a double album made with a restlessness that never allows it to settle into complacency or formula. It’s a soundtrack to a highly charged and specific period, for both Prince and his listeners. I remember partying to “Housequake” in the summer of ’87, laughing along with “Starfish & Coffee,” and playing “Adore” for my girlfriend when it was time to get busy. All these years later, it’s still a vibrant thing, the product of a great artist at the height of his powers.